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Integration with Node-RED

Node-RED is a flow-based development tool for visual programming, widely used to connect hardware devices, APIs, and online services. Its browser-based editor makes creating and deploying automation workflows simple.

In the context of OSCAR integration, Node-RED can be deployed and configured to interact with OSCAR services using authentication tokens obtained after logging in or using tokens specific for the service.

This tutorial demonstrates a simple workflow that calls the YOLOv8 synchronous service. You will learn:

  • How to deploy a Node-RED instance
  • How to connect Node-RED to the YOLOv8 synchronous service
  • How to authenticate using a token
  • How to process image data through the workflow

Deploy YOLOv8

Go to OSCAR Dashboard and, in the Services panel, select Create service -> FDL. Use the following configuration:

FDL:

functions:
  oscar:
  - oscar-cluster:
      name: yolov8-node-red
      memory: 4Gi
      cpu: '2.0'
      image: ai4oshub/ai4os-yolov8-torch:latest
      script: script.sh
      log_level: CRITICAL

Script:

#!/bin/bash
RENAMED_FILE="${INPUT_FILE_PATH}.png"
mv "$INPUT_FILE_PATH" "$RENAMED_FILE"
OUTPUT_FILE="$TMP_OUTPUT_DIR/output.png"
deepaas-cli --deepaas_method_output="$OUTPUT_FILE" predict --files "$RENAMED_FILE" --accept image/png 2>&1
echo "Prediction was saved in: $OUTPUT_FILE"

Deploy Node-RED

  1. In the OSCAR dashboard, go to the Flows panel and then click New. node-red-deployed.png

  2. Enter the admin password, that you will be asked to access later on this instance of Node-RED, and select or create a Bucket.

    node-red-dashboard.png

  3. After deploying Node-RED we access its user interface. node-red-dashboard-visit.png

Once the service is up and running, you can log in with your credentials (the user is always admin).

node-red-login.png

Create a workflow in Node-RED

Let's create a workflow that fetches an image from the Internet, makes a request to the YOLO service and visualizes the result.

We need the following list of components from the Node-RED sidebar menu:

  • Common → inject node
  • Network → HTTP request node
  • Output → image node
  • OSCAR → OSCAR YOLO8 node

node-red-nodes.png

Drag and drop the boxes to the canvas and then connect the components as shown:

node-red-workflow.png

Now we need to configure the components. To configure the HTTP request node double-click on it:

  • URL: URL of an image you want to analyze with YOLO (for example, you can use this image)
  • Payload: Send as request body
  • Return: A binary buffer

node-red-http-request.png

Configure the OSCAR YOLO8 node:

  • Server: URL of the OSCAR cluster. You can get it from OSCAR dashboard → Info (Sidebar panel) → Endpoint
  • Service Name: yolov8-node-red
  • Token: Obtain the token from OSCAR dashboard → Info (Sidebar panel) → Access token

node-red-node-oscar-yolo.png

Test the workflow

After configuring your workflow, you can test it in the Node-RED Editor:

Click Deploy (top right corner) and then click on the inject node:

node-red-workflow-run.png

You should see the result as indicated below.

node-red-workflow-result.png

ℹ️ NOTE: If you want to download this example and others, visit the AI4Compose repository.